The Kitchen God's Wife

by Amy Tan

  Auntie Du was outside the jail, waiting for me. We got on a bus. We were going home—to the apartment I had once shared with Jimmy. Along the way, I saw how much the city had changed. Banks, shops, schools, restaurants—so many places were closed. There were many cars on the streets, filled with people and their belongings, packed so full that clothes were spilling out of the windows.

  People used to say that one hundred thousand people walk up and down Nanking Road every day. That day I came out of jail, it must have been one hundred thousand all pushing carts filled with strange combinations of things, sacks of rice and mink coats, that sort of thing. Auntie Du said they were all running to the train station and the boat harbor, to leave for Canton and Hong Kong before the Communists came.

  Hulan was cooking when I arrived home. She ran to me, pinched my thin cheek, and said, “Maybe my cooking will never be as good as yours. But today I think you will like it better than what you have been eating.” Her new husband guided me to the sofa, telling me to rest my feet, rest my head. I started to thank him with all my heart.

  “Kuang An,” I said, “without your help—”

  He brushed my thanks away. “No need to say anything.”

  “It’s true,” I said. “Maybe I would not have lasted another six months in there.”

  “You’re here,” he said. “That’s what matters. Everything else is past.”

  Really, he was being too polite. So I became too polite in a ridiculous way as well. “I know it was a lot of trouble,” I said. “Maybe you had to pay some money. In any case, I will always be in your debt. If you ever need a favor from your friend Jiang Weili, you must ask. And each time I can do this, it will only add to my happiness.”

  His face turned red. Such modesty, I thought.

  And now Hulan was chatting like a happy bird. “Didn’t I tell you? Just one word, that’s all Kuang An had to say. He knows everybody, many important people. Of course, I was after him many times. Why the delay, I said. Get her out faster.”

  “No more talk,” Auntie Du said. “This poor little person is so thin she is about to blow away.” And this was true. I was probably ten pounds less than I was the year before, and back then I had been quite thin.

  My homecoming meal was very simple: spinach with one little black mushroom chopped up for taste, an egg custard with pork, fried strips of yellow fish, and a fish-head soup. That was all, three dishes and a soup, for four people. The portions were very small, too. I think Auntie Du saw me examining the last dish, knowing I was surprised there was nothing more coming.

  “This meal is very special,” she explained.

  “Oh!” I assured her. “It is too good to be true, everything.”

  “Yes, but you should know anyway. We have not eaten anything like it in many months.”

  “The new paper money is worthless,” said Hulan. “If you want a bag of rice—maybe you have to pay six million yuan in new money. Ridiculous! The money weighs more than the rice!”

  “Then how did you pay for tonight’s food?” I asked.

  “I sold a little jade bracelet,” said Auntie Du, and when she saw the shock on my face, she added, “It’s the only way. That’s all we can keep. Those are the only things you can use for trading. If they find you with gold or U.S. dollars on the street, you can be killed. The Kuomintang will shoot you in the head. And when the Communists come, maybe they will do the same.”

  “We have no money?’ I asked Auntie Du.

  “I didn’t say this. I said they must not find you on the streets with gold or dollars. We still have one little gold bar from when you cashed in your bank account. And we have almost two hundred U.S. dollars, given to us by Jimmy Louie. Also there are still your gold bracelets, a ring, and some other little things, earrings and such. So really, we are quite lucky.”

  And then I remembered. “Maybe we are even luckier,” I said. “Where is my suitcase?” We went into the bedroom. I opened the suitcase and pulled up the bottom. I had hidden them so well I had almost forgotten. But there they were: ten pairs of silver chopsticks, their chains still connected.

  Hulan and Kuang An lived with us now—in the apartment Jimmy and I once shared. They slept in the living room. I took the bed with Auntie Du. That first night, I did not think I would sleep. I was remembering my life in the apartment just two years before, all those happy times with Jimmy Louie and Danru. But a moment later, it seemed to me, Auntie Du was shaking me awake. It was morning, and she was laughing, because I had squeezed myself flat against the wall, the same way I was used to sleeping in jail.

  After breakfast, I gave Hulan a present, a pair of earrings. I put them down next to her plate. Her husband tried to refuse them for her.

  “No, no!” he said. “There is no more need for thanks. Take the earrings back. No more arguing about this.”

  I pretended not to hear him. “Try them on,” I said to Hulan. “I only want to see how they look on your ears.” And she hesitated—maybe five seconds—then tightened one earring on, then the other.

  You know the earrings I am talking about? The ones Auntie Helen wears all the time to fancy occasions? They have a nice shape, two thick half-circles with gold bands at each end. We call it imperial green jade. You cannot find this color jade so easily anymore, very rare, very expensive now. I gave her those earrings for helping me get out of jail.

  And then guess what I found out? When Auntie Du and I were walking to the market that day, she said to me, “Don’t give Hulan any more gifts. Kuang An does not want you to remind him of his help.”

  I said to Auntie Du, “He’s modest, a good man, I know this. But I think he’s proud that I gave Hulan the earrings.”

  “No more gifts,” said Auntie Du firmly.

  “Auntie,” I said, “they are only being polite in refusing.”

  “Maybe Hulan, not Kuang An.” And then she told me how Kuang An had come to her a month before, when I was still in jail. He was so dumbfounded and ashamed. His schoolmate friend had refused to talk to him, would not even come out of his office to say hello. He was afraid to tell Hulan that his friend did not consider him important enough to see, that he could not help her friend out of jail.

  “I’m so ashamed to tell my wife,” he said to Auntie Du.

  And Auntie Du told him, “Don’t think about this anymore.”

  “He didn’t help me?” I said.

  Auntie Du shook her head. “He wanted to, of course. But in the end, I went to the officials myself,” she said. “It was nothing really, it took only a little thinking for a few days. You see how things are now in Shanghai, who is coming to take over everything. I told the prison people you were the relation of a high-ranking Communist leader—the name, I said, is a big secret. But I said to them, ‘If the Communists come next month and find Jiang Weili in prison—oyo!’ ”

  “You said this?”

  Auntie Du was laughing. “You see what power is—holding someone else’s fear in your hand and showing it to them! Besides, maybe it is true. Maybe Peanut and Little Yu’s Mother are now big Communists, who knows?”

  Auntie Du made me promise I would not tell Hulan. You see what a good lady she was? She wanted Hulan to be proud of Kuang An. She said Kuang An’s intention was there, that’s what mattered. She did not need to let everyone know she was really the big hero. But I knew, and that was enough for her.

  Still, there were many, many times when I had to bite my tongue. Helen would say, “Now I am asking you back for that favor.” And I always knew what favor she was talking about. And Henry knew too, but in a different way. And I knew—in another different way. Sometimes she asked for a lot, like that time she wanted me to help her come to the United States in 1953 after she and Uncle Henry had run away to Formosa. She was asking your father and me to spend a lot of money. And what could I say?—“I did not really mean to give you those earrings, give them back.”

  In any case, most times I am glad she is here, Henry too. Their hearts are good. I get mad only whe
n Helen acts as if she knew everything. And now you know: She doesn’t.

  The day after I got out of jail, I wrote a letter to Jimmy. I said I was waiting to find out what he wanted me to do. Should I come? Should I wait until he came to get me? I said I thought the Communists would be coming soon, maybe in one or two months. And then I read that letter to myself and tore it up.

  I was remembering how his letters had changed over the last six months. He still called me his Little Wife. But he did not write three pages about his big love for me. It was more like two pages about his love for me, and then one page about his love for God. And a few months after that, it was one for me, two for God.

  So I wrote a simple letter instead. I said I had been released from jail. I said, Things have changed in Shanghai, more than you can imagine. I said the Communists were coming, the Kuomintang were already leaving. Who knows if things would be better or worse.

  That was the letter I sent. And then I decided I would wait. I told Auntie Du what I had done. Right away she said, “What? You are going to do nothing but wait? What happened to you in that jail? Did you learn only to keep your feet planted on the concrete floor? Anyone who even thinks she has a chance to leave is fighting for that chance now.”

  She pulled me up from my chair. “We are going to the telegraph office,” she said. “Otherwise, your letter will take six months to reach him. And then what will it matter what he answers back? All your chances will be gone.”

  At the telegraph office, Auntie Du and I had to fight to keep our place in line. Everyone, it seemed, had an urgent message, some kind of terrible emergency. After three or four hours, we were at the front of the line. I had Jimmy’s address already written down, along with my message: “Released from jail. Ready to come. Please advise. Your wife, Jiang Weili.”

  I handed this paper to the telegraph clerk. She read it, then said, “No, this won’t do. It’s not urgent enough. You must say, Hurry, soon we are taonan. ”

  I thought, What kind of person tells me I need to put more words in a telegram? And then I looked more carefully at this smiling clerk. Guess who it was? Wan Betty! Beautiful Betty!

  She had not died in Nanking. She explained that the day after I left, my four hundred dollars came. She could not send it back, so she used that money instead to run away to Shanghai. And now she had a son, already eleven years old, both smart and handsome.

  We could not talk long in that crowded office. She told me she would send my telegram—adding the words she suggested, to make Jimmy send back his answer right away.

  “As soon as his answer comes, I will bring it to your house,” she said.

  Two nights later, she came. I took the envelope into the bedroom and closed the door. I was shaking. And then my shakiness disappeared. Something was telling me I did not even need to open the envelope to know the answer. I knew my destiny, my fate, God’s will.

  The telegram said: “Praise God. Application complete for Jiang Weili Winnie Louie, wife of James Louie, U.S. citizen. Papers and seven hundred U.S. dollars coming. Leave immediately.”

  The next day we cashed the gold and some of my jewelry on the black market. And then Auntie Du and I went to find a visa. That place was worse than the telegraph office! People were crushed together, everyone shouting, arms waving money, people rushing forward to hear one rumor grow then disappear. The rules kept changing on how you could leave. You needed to have three countries say they guaranteed you could come if you could not return to China. I had the United States, of course, but I needed two more. That day someone said there were some openings, maybe it was for France, I don’t remember. Anyway, I paid two hundred U.S. dollars for my second country. Now I would need to find only one more. The next day I came back for my paper. The man told me, “That second country was just a rumor. Sorry, now the rumor is gone.” So was my two hundred dollars.

  I can’t remember how long I had to wait before I found another second country, and then a third, maybe two weeks all together. During that time, I was so nervous I broke out in a rash all over my body, then the muscles up and down my legs started to jump, as if little spiders were trying to get out. Beautiful Betty had to send many telegrams to Jimmy, explaining why I was delayed. Finally, my paperwork was complete. But I still needed a way to get out.

  I bought three tickets. The first was a black-market airplane ticket, leaving for San Francisco in ten days, on May 15. The second and third were legal tickets, one leaving for Hong Kong on May 27, the other for Singapore on June 3. I had three chances.

  I told Auntie Du that whatever tickets were left over she could have to sell or use. Auntie Du said she would decide later. Hulan had already said she did not want to leave. She wanted her baby to be born in China. Maybe you think this was a foolish idea, but I knew other people who thought the same way: To be born or buried in China, that was important. In any case, Hulan thought she could have her baby and still have time to decide if she should leave or not, no problem. She was wrong, of course. She had a lot of trouble. Why else did I have to help her?

  So everything was settled, except that I did one last, foolish thing. I still wanted my divorce from Wen Fu. This was my pride, and I do not know why I could not let it go. Why couldn’t I just come to America and forget everything else? But at the time, I convinced myself I could never have peace in my heart until I finished this one last thing.

  I did not think I was being reckless. I had my paper saying I had been in prison by mistake. I had a visa and a telegram saying I was the wife of James Louie. And I had a plan, a careful plan. This is how it went.

  Wan Betty sent an urgent telegram to Wen Fu. “Valuable package arrived for Mr. and Mrs. Wen Fu. Requires both signatures. Please claim May tenth, at two P.M. Bring telegram and name seal to Collections, Telegraph Office, Guanshi Road.”

  You think that greedy man could resist such a notice? At two o’clock, there he was, with his new woman, both of them pushing their way through the line. Hulan, Auntie Du, and I stood in a back office, watching. Wan Betty took the slip of paper and went to get the box in back, winking at me as she did. She put the box on the counter and asked Wen Fu and his wife to mark the receipt with their name seals. But just before he could do that, she pulled back the receipt and stared at the name. “Wen Fu?” she said in a puzzled voice. “Didn’t I know you in Nanking many years ago? Aren’t you married to Jiang Weili?”

  Wen Fu had his eyes on the box. “No longer,” he said.

  “Is this your wife, then?” asked Wan Betty, looking at the large, bossy-looking woman standing next to Wen Fu. “I cannot release this package to anyone except Wen Fu and his legal wife.”

  “This is my wife,” he said impatiently. “I divorced the other.”

  “Of course I am his wife!” said the bossy woman. “Who are you to question us about this?”

  That’s when I leaped out, Auntie Du and Hulan following right behind. “You admit this!” I shouted. “Now we have our witnesses.” And everyone in that crowded office was looking.

  Wen Fu stared at me as if I were a ghost.

  I handed him the divorce paper to sign. Everything was already written. It stated I had been divorced from Wen Fu since 1941, that this had happened in Kunming. It said he had no more claims on me as his wife, I had no more claims on him as a husband. At the bottom were three signatures with name seals: mine, Hulan’s, and Auntie Du’s.

  “You sign here,” I said.

  The bossy woman was not happy to see me, I could tell. “What kind of tricks are you playing on us?” she said.

  “No tricks,” I said. “If he doesn’t sign, I don’t care. I have a paper saying my jail sentence was a mistake. And in another week, I am leaving for America as the wife of someone else. But without this paper, you have no position in China. You will always be nothing but his low-class concubine.”

  People in the telegraph office were laughing. That woman was so mad!

  “Sign it and be done with her,” she said to Wen Fu. He did not move.
He had said nothing to me yet. He was still staring in an evil way. But then he smiled, his smile growing bigger and uglier. He laughed, then signed his name and marked his seal.

  He threw up his hands. “There,” he said. “All done.” He handed the paper back. And then he turned around, laughing to himself. The woman grabbed the package on the counter with a big huff, and they left. You see how stupid his new wife was? She took that package, a box I had filled that morning with dry cakes of donkey dung.

  So I had my divorce. Can you blame me for wanting it? Can you blame me for what happened after that?

  He must have been watching our place for many hours, maybe even days, because he waited until I was alone. I heard a knock at the door. I was not thinking, Oh, I should be careful. I answered it. He was there, pushing open the door, pushing me down on the floor, holding a gun to my head.

  He cursed me and said I would never be rid of him, never, even if I ran away to the farthest corners of the moon. He saw the suitcase I had been packing. He threw it across the room, and all my clothes, my tickets, and my important papers flew out. He picked up a sheet of paper rolled into a narrow tube and pulled the ribbon holding it together. It was my divorce paper, the one that had humiliated him. He tore it into little pieces, telling me, “Now you are the same whore you always were.”

  He picked up another paper. It was the telegram from your father. He read it in a mocking voice. He tore that up too and said Jimmy’s promises were as empty as the air they now floated in.

  And then he found the visa and my airplane tickets, including the one for leaving the next day. And I screamed. I begged him not to tear up my tickets. He bounced them up and down in his hand as if he were weighing gold. “Why should I tear them? I could sell these for a fortune.”